Minimizing Save scumming. Or is it too much of a hassle?

[DukeC]

I'll just state that I absolutely hate when games have limited save options. It has nothing to do with wanting to save before every fight, but rather everything to do with the fact that, if I have to leave or have to stop playing, I want the ability to save at that point.

 

I don't want to have to have to either play for another half hour to reach a save point or risk having to play through the same area all over again the next time I load the game.

 

I agree. I would also like an option "Auto saving before combat".

[TrashMan]

From my very limited and uninformed perspective, developing a game with choice and consequence and then designing the game around the assumption that people would bypass those choices and consequences would be amateurish at best. I have great confidence that the game will be designed around those choices. If the devs do design the game on the assumption that I'm not playing how you want, then I have probably backed the wrong developers. I don't think that will be the case.

 

And yet it happens. People bypass them.

 

Frankly, if people want to cheat, there are cheat codes adn modding for that.

I see no reason a game should facilitate that "freedom"

 

Mind you, I know some people venerate the word Freedom like it's the best thing ever in ever context and situation. With which I disagree.

 

 

 

 

I think requiring players to repeat content that they have already gone through is worse design.

 

Super Mario must be a horrible game then.

After all, it's so easy to die and if oyu do, you have to re-do the whole level (or half of it).

 

If you don't want to repeat content, how hard is it to take a minute to get back to a safe spot and save? If you dont' want to repeat content, then play the game more carefully. The option to retreat should always be there - an option that is NEVER used simply because it is easier to reload.

 

Is a 15 minute interval between normal saves (emergency saves not counted) really that horrible?

Are you really going to be dying that much?

 

Again, if you want to create a specific atmosphere or gaming mentality, save_anywhere can hurt your effort just as much as they can help it.

Edited October 9, 2012 by TrashMan

[Totottoro]

I seriously don't understand this debate...

 

I don't get how allowing people to play a game how they want and getting the max fun out of it has got anything to do with ALLOWING save/reload. Just make the save/reload system a toggle in the options. Let those who want to save every 15 seconds do that and enjoy; let those who don't want the temptation disable it; and finally let US who want to play the game our way, and save when we goddam well please enable the option...

 

Why should the no-savescamming-crowd get to diminish everybody else's experience of the game?

 

Add difficulty -> no saving -> You get your game

Normal dificulty -> saving -> I get my game

 

Who loses here?

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Do it like the IE games.

[AlphaShard]

If something important comes up in RL, I want to have the ability to save the game now and come back to it later.

 

For people with more free time, who want to make a challenge out of completing the game in a single session (or whatever) there's already an ironman mode in place. I fail to see the need to further limit saving/loading beyond that.

 

This +1,000,000, I don't have time to spend five hours straight going through a dungeon so I NEED to save whenever and where ever. Also people should stop dictating how others play their game it's getting obnoxious, if you don't like save scumming, don't do it.

[JediMB]

I'll just state that I absolutely hate when games have limited save options. It has nothing to do with wanting to save before every fight, but rather everything to do with the fact that, if I have to leave or have to stop playing, I want the ability to save at that point.

 

I don't want to have to have to either play for another half hour to reach a save point or risk having to play through the same area all over again the next time I load the game.

 

As far as your first point goes, there are plenty of games with save points that allow you to "Save and Quit" regardless of where you are.

 

I've seen the mechanic mostly in GBA and DS games.

[TrashMan]

I seriously don't understand this debate...

 

I don't get how allowing people to play a game how they want and getting the max fun out of it has got anything to do with ALLOWING save/reload. Just make the save/reload system a toggle in the options. Let those who want to save every 15 seconds do that and enjoy; let those who don't want the temptation disable it; and finally let US who want to play the game our way, and save when we goddam well please enable the option...

 

Freedom to do "whatever I want" is horribly overrated and cna ruin a game as much as too many restrictions.

 

The game mechanics serve to enforce a specific atmosphere and gameplay.

This come first and foremost.

Greater player freedom within those constraints is a great goal, but total player freedom is secondary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why should the no-savescamming-crowd get to diminish everybody else's experience of the game?

 

Add difficulty -> no saving -> You get your game

Normal dificulty -> saving -> I get my game

 

Who loses here?

 

Just because you think that the no-savescumming crowed loses nothing doesnt' make it so. Remember that.

 

GAME DESIGN DOES NOT EXIST IN VACUUM. Repeat it after me.

[Arkeus]

 

Why should the no-savescamming-crowd get to diminish everybody else's experience of the game?

 

Add difficulty -> no saving -> You get your game

Normal dificulty -> saving -> I get my game

 

Who loses here?

 

The people who loses there are:

*The people who want the game to be designed upon a quest-basis with attrition system, not a 'encounter' basis only.

*The people who are honest but knows that between "trying five times through reload to win the second end of the dungeon" and "go back to town, heal, rest, buy potions and wands before finishing the second half of the dungeon" they will almost always choose the earlier possibility, but knows that doing so will curtail their fun.

[Shadenuat]

It's CRPG, not a platformer, replaying a dungeon is not the same as replaying jumping on three rising blocks. You will get your Ironman where you could LARP being afraid of shadows around next corner and running back and forth and accepting deaths and hiring new companions to up them from level 1 to 22, so please "enjoy your new wife".

[Arkeus]

It's CRPG, not a platformer, replaying a dungeon is not the same as replaying jumping on three rising blocks. You will get your Ironman where you could LARP being afraid of shadows around next corner and running back and forth and accepting deaths and hiring new companions to up them from level 1 to 22, so please "enjoy your new wife".

 

Except Ironman doesn't allow dying at all, not just make it more costly. There is a big difference there.

[Shadenuat]

Well, make one save at the start of every dungeon/location. If people want that so much, why don't they have enough will to remove F5 and F9 buttons from their keyboard? *sigh*

[Elerond]

CRPG should always have option for mode where saiving and loading is not restricted any way.

 

Because it put least constraints for level and story design

It adds new roleplaying options like choosen by god of luck to never fail

Omniscient character who always knows how people will react on his or her choices, and alway knows where enemies lurk.

But it also don't restrict traditional roleplaying, where you accept consequence as they come.

And it also allow save point system, if players really want such idiotism, in form of autosaves as level desingers can put autosave script to those locations where they feel that savepoint is needed.

It also don't restrict save only in quit and load only in start modes.

[Slaunyeh]

If something important comes up in RL, I want to have the ability to save the game now and come back to it later.

 

Not to mention if the game is a little less stable than desired (no offence, but this is an Obsidian title ). I don't want to replay a difficult fight because the game crashes, the cat steps on the power cord, there's someone at the door, or whatever. The Save Point mechanic is a serious turn-off, and occasional deal-breaker, IMHO.

[Totottoro]

I seriously don't understand this debate...

 

I don't get how allowing people to play a game how they want and getting the max fun out of it has got anything to do with ALLOWING save/reload. Just make the save/reload system a toggle in the options. Let those who want to save every 15 seconds do that and enjoy; let those who don't want the temptation disable it; and finally let US who want to play the game our way, and save when we goddam well please enable the option...

 

Freedom to do "whatever I want" is horribly overrated and cna ruin a game as much as too many restrictions.

 

The game mechanics serve to enforce a specific atmosphere and gameplay.

This come first and foremost.

Greater player freedom within those constraints is a great goal, but total player freedom is secondary.

 

 

 

Why should the no-savescamming-crowd get to diminish everybody else's experience of the game?

 

Add difficulty -> no saving -> You get your game

Normal dificulty -> saving -> I get my game

 

Who loses here?

 

Just because you think that the no-savescumming crowed loses nothing doesnt' make it so. Remember that.

 

GAME DESIGN DOES NOT EXIST IN VACUUM. Repeat it after me.

 

 

Why should the no-savescamming-crowd get to diminish everybody else's experience of the game?

 

Add difficulty -> no saving -> You get your game

Normal dificulty -> saving -> I get my game

 

Who loses here?

 

The people who loses there are:

*The people who want the game to be designed upon a quest-basis with attrition system, not a 'encounter' basis only.

*The people who are honest but knows that between "trying five times through reload to win the second end of the dungeon" and "go back to town, heal, rest, buy potions and wands before finishing the second half of the dungeon" they will almost always choose the earlier possibility, but knows that doing so will curtail their fun.

 

So because people can't control the way they play their game, they have the right to dictate how I play mine? Seriously?

[ogrezilla]

TrashMan you brought this up yesterday without an example and you just did again on the last page. Can you please give some examples of a game allowing us to save anywhere negatively influencing the design of other parts of the game that can't be ignored by people who want limited saving? Every single example I've seen of saving negatively influencing someone's experience has been completely avoidable by simply not using the save/load feature when you don't want to. Like I said, you mentioned yesterday that you can't just ignore it because it causes other design problems (game design isn't in a vacuum or some such) but you haven't given an example. Ideally examples from the games these developers have designed that almost all (maybe all) included a save and load anywhere function.

Edited October 9, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Baeus]

Raise dead.

 

I hate "raise dead". It's cheesy and implausible and removes nearly all the penalty from dying. In terms of making the game easy it's much worse than save scumming. Actually I'd like to propose that all versions of "raise dead" even at a temple are removed in expert mode. The whole mechanic is just silly. If that's what people mean by permadeath then I am all for permadeath.

 

It is kind of a silly idea, especially when the main solution to any problem in these games is often "Kill the bad guy"... well, until someone raises the bad guy right back up.

 

But, for all the 2nd ed games, it was very necessary. The existance of save or die spells/abilities/mechanisms meant you could lose a character at any moment to a single unlucky roll. If there's a great deal of randomness in a game, as there often is with the old school rpgs, then a lot of people are going to want either Raise Dead or the ability to save scum rather than getting frustrated by being screwed over by simple bad luck rather than bad play/poor tactics.

 

Although, if they are putting in Iron Man type modes, maybe they'll be staying away from that level of randomness for this game.

[AlphaShard]

Raise dead is not cheesy, someone has to drag the body to the temple with all the gear he or she can no longer carry. Then you have to have the money for the service and in BG1 I didn't always have the money. I remember they used to give you a hit to Con for doing this as well.

 

I have myself accepted the death of characters on occasion and other times not, what does it matter how someone ELSE plays the game? I don't get this fixation at all. What does it matter to you how I play the game? Some people play it solo, some might want to act like a Neeber and click on characters excessively just to hear their responses, so what? No one is forcing you to do this and I don't want developers having to waste time and act like police trying to keep people from abusing mechanics of a game.

 

If history repeats itself here which I am sure it will, Mods will be made of all sorts of abusive stuff to the game. So I don't see the point in taking my freedom away from being able to save and quit where and when I want just because someone is save/restarting a million times. It's none of mine or your business what they do.

[harhar!]

Don't tell me how to play my game. I don't see how people can discuss this for 9 pages. Build in the ability to save anywhere and people who don't want to use it, get some discipline and don't use it.

Edited October 9, 2012 by harhar!

[Arkeus]

 

 

So because people can't control the way they play their game, they have the right to dictate how I play mine? Seriously?

When a cheatcode is part of the basic UI and showed as a normal feature of the game, yes, it influence all of the game, as well as ingluence the balance mechanics of the game, and possibly even the contents of the quests.

[AlphaShard]

So because people can't control the way they play their game, they have the right to dictate how I play mine? Seriously?

When a cheatcode is part of the basic UI and showed as a normal feature of the game, yes, it influence all of the game, as well as ingluence the balance mechanics of the game, and possibly even the contents of the quests.

 

Only it's not a cheat code, in fact in BG I remember them adding that random monsters would spawn near by if you reloaded in an outside/dungeon location.

 

You can use Motherlode in the Sims all day long but in the end EA didn't make you enter in the code, the choice is yours and yours alone. Same with saving and reloading.

Edited October 9, 2012 by AlphaShard

[TrashMan]

TrashMan you brought this up yesterday without an example and you just did again on the last page. Can you please give some examples of a game allowing us to save anywhere negatively influencing the design of other parts of the game that can't be ignored by people who want limited saving? Every single example I've seen of saving negatively influencing someone's experience has been completely avoidable by simply not using the save/load feature when you don't want to. Like I said, you mentioned yesterday that you can't just ignore it because it causes other design problems (game design isn't in a vacuum or some such) but you haven't given an example. Ideally examples from the games these developers have designed that almost all (maybe all) included a save and load anywhere function.

 

 

You already know that what I say is true. It's just common sense.

Game design don't exist in a vacuum = fact.

 

If you want an example - Rogues. They are designed differently than what they are supposed to be, and if you think that complains from players who abused the system and thus found then "useless" didnt' factor into that, think again.

 

And I will tell you one more thing.

The existence of that feature may (or may not) bother me. Any objection you may have to that is irrelevant.

IF it bothers me, then the game isn't to my liking and it automaticly lessns the game for me. Wether you think that it should or shouldn't bother me is irrelevant.

 

At hte end of the day this amounts of "I think the game is better with X and without Y" and you saying "the game is better wihout X and with Y".

[ogrezilla]

So because people can't control the way they play their game, they have the right to dictate how I play mine? Seriously?

When a cheatcode is part of the basic UI and showed as a normal feature of the game, yes, it influence all of the game, as well as ingluence the balance mechanics of the game, and possibly even the contents of the quests.

that's bad game design then. design the game to be played normally without the cheatcode ui and nobody is bothered. both starcraft and warcraft series have included very easy to use cheat codes but neither is designed expecting you to cheat.

[AlphaShard]

So because people can't control the way they play their game, they have the right to dictate how I play mine? Seriously?

When a cheatcode is part of the basic UI and showed as a normal feature of the game, yes, it influence all of the game, as well as ingluence the balance mechanics of the game, and possibly even the contents of the quests.

that's bad game design then. design the game to be played normally without the cheatcode ui and nobody is bothered. both starcraft and warcraft series have included very easy to use cheat codes but neither is designed expecting you to cheat.

 

I just remembered in BG you could use Ctrl+K with cheats enabled from the console to kill everything in the game. That's more game breaking and experience ruining then Save Scumming, no one complains about though.

[ogrezilla]

TrashMan you brought this up yesterday without an example and you just did again on the last page. Can you please give some examples of a game allowing us to save anywhere negatively influencing the design of other parts of the game that can't be ignored by people who want limited saving? Every single example I've seen of saving negatively influencing someone's experience has been completely avoidable by simply not using the save/load feature when you don't want to. Like I said, you mentioned yesterday that you can't just ignore it because it causes other design problems (game design isn't in a vacuum or some such) but you haven't given an example. Ideally examples from the games these developers have designed that almost all (maybe all) included a save and load anywhere function.

 

 

You already know that what I say is true. It's just common sense.

Game design don't exist in a vacuum = fact.

 

If you want an example - Rogues. They are designed differently than what they are supposed to be, and if you think that complains from players who abused the system and thus found then "useless" didnt' factor into that, think again.

 

And I will tell you one more thing.

The existence of that feature may (or may not) bother me. Any objection you may have to that is irrelevant.

IF it bothers me, then the game isn't to my liking and it automaticly lessns the game for me. Wether you think that it should or shouldn't bother me is irrelevant.

 

At hte end of the day this amounts of "I think the game is better with X and without Y" and you saying "the game is better wihout X and with Y".

ya, the rogue thing is a ridiculous leap in logic. there have been too many games where saving wasn't limited with rogues designed just fine for that argument to hold. Saving has no direct effect on the gameplay. Thus, it should have no direct effect on design. If it does, I would call it bad design and not a bad save system. I still haven't seen one legitimate way it effects the design of the game. The rogue thing is just plain wrong. What you want to say is rogues are designed differently than you want them to be and you need to find somewhere to place the blame. Blame people like me. I love rogues being more combat oriented. Yet, I have never seen a trend of them being more or less combat oriented based on the save system. Unless you are talking about the IE game thieves and rogues too. Maybe you think they are too combat oriented even dating back to BG. At that point, I think its pretty obviously a function of the games being more combat oriented than PnP RPGs.

 

and you're wrong about the last part too. Because the system I like still allows you to play the way you like. But the system you like does not allow me to play the way I like. They are not just different; one of them is inherently more flexible than the other. And not to be a jerk about it, but I really don't think I have to worry about it. I am all but positive we will have free saving just like we did in the IE games.

Edited October 9, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Arkeus]

that's bad game design then. design the game to be played normally without the cheatcode ui and nobody is bothered. both starcraft and warcraft series have included very easy to use cheat codes but neither is designed expecting you to cheat.

 

Yes, which is why i am saying the devellopers should find way to encourage players to not abuse saves in a way that destroy game content. I do agree with you that it shouldn't be done in such a way that it takes away from the enjoyment of the game, and that 'forcing the players to replay a long passage' is probably not the best way to do it.

 

Probably 'rewards' like having the quests give a tiny more exp if no reload is used during the whole duration of the quest (except for save&quit save/reloads) could work better, i don't know.

 

 

I just remembered in BG you could use Ctrl+K with cheats enabled from the console to kill everything in the game. That's more game breaking and experience ruining then Save Scumming, no one complains about though.

 

Except that enabling the cheat console and then learning the cheat code is accpeting "i am cheating". Reloading ten times against a boss until they get perfect rolls is not, for most players, considered cheating.